Cooling Tower Bits and Pieces

When working on Cooling Towers, be careful not to discard pieces such as panels, internal access doors, vanes, inlet rings, baffles, stiffeners, etc. without fully understanding their intended purpose.

Removing plywood from an air inlet is obvious but scrapping vital components due to corrosion or mechanical damage can lead to reduced performance, spitting, leaking, wet fan operation, etc.. Often, these operational difficulties lead to reduced performance and/or shortened equipment life.

One common mistake is to abbreviate the panel(s) separating multiple cells on blow-thru towers to enhance access or to remove corrosion. There will be no apparent problem when all cells operate but air will exit past idle fans when individual cells are shut down. This can lead to ice on the fans, excessive corrosion to parts that aren't intended to operate wet, scale formation, fan imbalance, water leakage and just a messy installation.

The metal angles screwed to the top of counterflow towers that hold the eliminators in place can be removed provided the nylon "seat belts" remain. These are meant to restrain the eliminators as the tower ships to the job site on an open truck bed at 70mph!

Ask your local sales rep if you have any questions about individual cooling tower parts.

Don Davis

Expert Cooling Tower Repair, LLC